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Topic: Why are scientists afraid of god? (Read 41784 times)

Even the earth isn't that hospitable for life - at least sentient life, jaimehlers. For sentient life we are going to have to rule out large amounts of the surface, 70% as seas, quite a bit of the frozen wastes, deserts etc. (Yes, I know cetaceans have a lot more thinking capacity than we thought but I bet they haven't thought of gods though!) What's left of the earth's surface doesn't have that much where we can manage without warm clothing - especially Winnipeg apparently - and housing and stuff.

So this fine tuning is all very well but very restricted. Incidentally, Spinner, We have heard you say that the universe is finely tuned for life but did you hear about the puddle? It boasted that the land must have been designed specially for it to sit in! The thing is that life has taken up the challenge and manages to fit itself in wherever it can. There is life at the bottom of the ocean and some bacteria even evolved to eat waste nylon but adpating is what ligfe had to do to survive.

Oh, and in case, Spinner, you want to say the fact that there is a universe and not nothing which might have resulted if the laws of physics were a little different, just remember, the chace of this universe arising is 1:1 because it is here!

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No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such that its falshood would be more miraculous than the facts it endeavours to establish. (David Hume)

I dunno, the universe seems fine tuned to support life. Lots of things that could change only minutely that would make like impossible, on our specific universe as well as among universal things like atoms. If it seems to be tuned for life, then the most reasonable conclusion is that it was. Origin/existence as well, it can easily be explained with a creator but can't be explained at all with naturalism.

The problem is that it wouldn't seem that way for the people who a priori accepted the 'fact' that the existence of a creator would be absolutely impossible.

Ah, the fine-tuned arguments own Euthyphro dilemma - is what is fine-tuned commanded by God because it is fine-tuned, or is it fine-tuned because it is commanded by God?

I screwed up quoting on a previous post. Oops. Here's what I asked:

Spinner,if you turned on a TV and got static 99.9% of the time, and saw a chanel 0.01% of the time, would you say that TV is "finely tuned" to recieve that chanel?

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...religion is simply tribalism with a side order of philosophical wankery, and occasionally a baseball bat to smash...anyone who doesn't show...deference to the tribe's chosen totem.

~Astreja

To not believe in god is to know that it falls to us to make the world a better place.

I dunno, the universe seems fine tuned to support life. Lots of things that could change only minutely that would make like impossible, on our specific universe as well as among universal things like atoms. If it seems to be tuned for life, then the most reasonable conclusion is that it was. Origin/existence as well, it can easily be explained with a creator but can't be explained at all with naturalism.

The problem is that it wouldn't seem that way for the people who a priori accepted the 'fact' that the existence of a creator would be absolutely impossible.

Ah, the fine-tuned arguments own Euthyphro dilemma - is what is fine-tuned commanded by God because it is fine-tuned, or is it fine-tuned because it is commanded by God?

I screwed up quoting on a previous post. Oops. Here's what I asked:

Spinner,if you turned on a TV and got static 99.9% of the time, and saw a chanel 0.01% of the time, would you say that TV is "finely tuned" to recieve that chanel?

Yeah, I understand your point. Spinner might see the fine-tuned argument like that, but classically the argument isn't so much that the TV is finely tuned to receive that channel, but so that the TV is able to broadcast a channel. The universe is finely tuned in such a way that life can exist, not that the universe is finely tuned in such a way that life holds a majority in the universe. Granted, it is a bit weasely, but that's what is mainly used.

The point I'm making with the Euthyphro dilemma is that either god had to follow some external rules/laws when creating a universe that is able to harbour life or that he also created the rules/laws that allow a universe to harbour life. If the former, then it isn't god doing the fine-tuning as that just happens to be the way that life can exist. If the latter, then god wasn't doing any fine-tuning, he just decided that life can exist according to the rules he made. He could've had them rules any way he liked, which renders any fine-tuning as redundant.

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Christian: "My faith grows every day."Atheist: "So does rhubarb, and for the same reason."

The problem is that it wouldn't seem that way for the people who a priori accepted the 'fact' that the existence of a creator would be absolutely impossible.

Yeah, that's what they said about the source of lightning too, before science figured out what really caused it.

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So then why can't science accept a supernatural cause? Even in the areas where a supernatural cause would make more sense than a natural one?

Because the supernatural has never, let me repeat, NEVER been needed to expalin anything in our universe. Not even once. Just because we don't yet know something, like abiogenesis, doesn't mean that a god did it.

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So then you accept that science is inherently secular, right?

If science found evidence of a god, or any other supernatural phenomena, it would cease to be supernatural, and simply be natural. But science looks for causes and explanations, so if the cause and the explanation truly was some sort of god, science would accept that too. As would atheists, by the way.

Seriously though, as wheels points out, it's a real problem for "fine-tunists". They can say, "X made the universe just the way it is" - but that just moves the question back to what caused X to make the universe just the way it is.

I am saying that creationists don't just a priori deny a supernatural cause for no reason like a secular atheist would.

Why does the amount matter? Once again, if we are working within the area of the teachings of creationism. God put us on this earth and nowhere else (as Jesus visited this planet, no other), so a universe where the 'vast majority' doesn't support life also makes sense, as this planet is the only place that it is required.

Thought you just said that the, "universe is fine tuned for life," as opposed to, "God created the universe, but only fine tuned the Earth for life. The stars were just created to dazzle us, and to help tell the seasons." Two completely different things.

Maybe Jesus did visit another planet. How would you know? You really think that as an artist, God just stopped at one masterpiece, or did God keep creating, just as all the artists do?

According to the latest research, god designed the human being-- and all other living beings--primarily in order to provide habitat for microorganisms. We are just big, noisy walking packages of bacteria, viruses and other microbes. We have more microbe cells than human cells making us, in a way, more microbes than human!

We evolved to live with these microbes inside us, and they evolved to use us for their habitat. Reading this stuff really makes me wonder about all the arguments on free will. If your microbes really want alcohol, for example, you are probably going to drink to excess, no matter what effect it has on your job, family, etc.

And we inherited our microbe packages, along with our lungs and teeth and bipedal walking, from our animal ancestors.....

The problem is that the pre-supposition that "Mankind is all there is." is made a priori to the conclusion of "There simply can't be a god because mankind is all there is."

There is no point to such a pre-supposition aside from scientists fearing the easy way out by saying "God just did it." and if they are already secular enough to believe God doesn't exist at all I see no point in writing off a creator prior to observations in the first place. It only serves as a tool for scientists to write off such explanations as 'non-scientific'. It is pretty much just a means to an end for secular science to dominate the playing field while they can just write off non-secular science as merely 'not science'.

Are you trying to say that you want to redefine science so you can include "the supernatural" (whatever that means)?? This utterly fails because the supernatural can neither be coherently defined or demonstrated and science relies upon what can be demonstrated, predicted with accuracy, tested, verified, and/or falsified. Logic, reason, and evidence (the scientific method) is the single most consistently reliable pathway we have for separating fact from fiction. If you think YOUR method is more reliable, then demonstrate it. Stop the talking and start SHOWING. Start making some reliable predictions that can be tested and falsified or confirmed. Until then, all it sounds like is that you just don't like the tools we humans have for determining what is true from what is not true.

It sounds to me like you just don't like science.

p.s. - Science does NOT presuppose "Mankind is all there is"!!! Ever hear of the SETI research team? You really need to stop with this presuppositional apologetics bullshit. There is no "I don't know" presupposition and instead of holding onto your admitted presupposition (which is really a pre-commitment) you should be admitting ignorance when you don't know things. Why is that so hard for you?

I dunno, the universe seems fine tuned to support life. Lots of things that could change only minutely that would make like impossible, on our specific universe as well as among universal things like atoms. If it seems to be tuned for life, then the most reasonable conclusion is that it was. Origin/existence as well, it can easily be explained with a creator but can't be explained at all with naturalism.

The problem is that it wouldn't seem that way for the people who a priori accepted the 'fact' that the existence of a creator would be absolutely impossible.

And therein lies your fallacy...

It's called the Argument from Incredulity Fallacy. You have bought into the BS assertion that "Science can't explain it! It's impossible w/out a god!" when in fact YOU-DO-NOT-KNOW-THAT. Instead of admitting your own ignorance you jumped to some Christian apologist' argument about what seems impossible to you. Just how exactly did you come to this grand determination about what is impossible?

No, what seems likely is that you are ignorant of science and various scientific subjects. You have STARTED with your conclusion and are now trying to work backwards. What you have failed to take into account is that science very often shows us things that DO NOT SEEM to be the case. Science demonstrates things that are often against our intuitions and inclinations - and those things come through demonstrable evidence, accurate prediction, and verification.

Sorry but, "It seems like it to me" is not a sufficient reason for thinking your guess is the correct one. Science does not operate that way. Once again, it seems like you just don't like science.

Often times atheists forget that creationists don't just argue that everything we observe can only be explained via the supernatural, but instead that we believe that both the natural and the supernatural exist and explanations can have either as an ultimate answer. If something can be explained naturally better than supernaturally (aka: drop an apple, it falls because of gravity) it doesn't refute a creationist's standpoint at all. We believe in both the natural and supernatural and can therefore accept either answer, while naturalism can only accept one and must accept it even under the circumstance that the other would make more sense.

LOL. Wonderful! So then I'm sure you can accept my explanation on the morning of Dec 25, when the cookies have been eaten and the milk is gone from the glass, that Santa Claus supernaturally came down the chimney and ate the cookies and drank the milk, right? And you can do so JUST AS MUCH as accepting that I placed it there and decided to have a little midnight snack, yes??

Like, the earth's distance from the sun is not, as some of these fine tuners say, an exact perfect circle or something where we would all die if there was an inch, foot or mile of difference. The earth's solar orbit is a long oval shape, with a lot of variation in the distance during the year. In July the sun is 152 million km away and in Jan it is 147 million km away. (Yeah, we earthlings are 5 million km closer to the sun in January!) I guess god liked to keep us guessing, or wanted us to become good at interstellar math.

While on earth itself, we humans have a pretty narrow range of livable habitats, there is a lot of variation where life can exist, especially if you include micro organisms like viruses. After all, most life lives inside of other life![1]

There are also creatures that live underwater in total darkness, xerophytic plants that live with almost no water at all, animals that eat only one thing their entire lives (koalas and pandas), and animals that can eat just about anything (pigs and goats).

And then there is the naked mole rat, the only mammal likely to survive a meteor strike, nuclear holocaust, zombie apocalypse or Kardashian catastrophe. The damn thing can go without food and water indefinitely, is resistant to both heat and cold, breathes methane, eats its own waste, can knaw through cement, feels no pain, lives 30 years and is immune to cancer.

I bow down before our future rodent overlords.

God just barely tolerates humans--I mean, look at us. We die just trying to get the next generation born.

While on earth itself, we humans have a pretty narrow range of livable habitats, there is a lot of variation where life can exist, especially if you include micro organisms like viruses. After all, most life lives inside of other life![1]

Rule 1: No pooftas. Rule 2: No maltreating the theists, IF, anyone is watching. Rule 3: No pooftas. Rule 4: I do not want to see anyone NOT drinking after light out. Rule 5: No pooftas. Rule 6: There is NO...rule 6.

What do science teachers know? If god says viruses are alive, they are. And the ark was full of them. So there.

*theist mode activate*

Lol, the bible says only creatures that CRAWL on the earth were on the ark.

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Rule 1: No pooftas. Rule 2: No maltreating the theists, IF, anyone is watching. Rule 3: No pooftas. Rule 4: I do not want to see anyone NOT drinking after light out. Rule 5: No pooftas. Rule 6: There is NO...rule 6.

So where did all the microbes that have to live inside other organisms come from, fancy pants theist apologist? They only live inside specific organisms. They can't exist in water or air. So, flood that!

So where did all the microbes that have to live inside other organisms come from, fancy pants theist apologist? They only live inside specific organisms. They can't exist in water or air. So, flood that!

Isn't it obvious? You silly atheist!

Those nasty germs were put here by satan.

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Rule 1: No pooftas. Rule 2: No maltreating the theists, IF, anyone is watching. Rule 3: No pooftas. Rule 4: I do not want to see anyone NOT drinking after light out. Rule 5: No pooftas. Rule 6: There is NO...rule 6.

Rule 1: No pooftas. Rule 2: No maltreating the theists, IF, anyone is watching. Rule 3: No pooftas. Rule 4: I do not want to see anyone NOT drinking after light out. Rule 5: No pooftas. Rule 6: There is NO...rule 6.

I wonder is 'crawl' included things like [wiki]euglena[/wiki]. They sort of crawl!

How quaint, alas, they have features of both plant and animal, and thus were not on the ark.

Come on, surely you silly atheists can do better.

(Wow, now i know how a theist feels, just post stupid shit, and feel smug)

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Rule 1: No pooftas. Rule 2: No maltreating the theists, IF, anyone is watching. Rule 3: No pooftas. Rule 4: I do not want to see anyone NOT drinking after light out. Rule 5: No pooftas. Rule 6: There is NO...rule 6.

So where did all the microbes that have to live inside other organisms come from, fancy pants theist apologist? They only live inside specific organisms. They can't exist in water or air. So, flood that!

So where did all the microbes that have to live inside other organisms come from, fancy pants theist apologist? They only live inside specific organisms. They can't exist in water or air. So, flood that!

Isn't it obvious? You silly atheist!

Those nasty germs were put here by satan.

You mean....Satan has the ability to create life?

Didn't doctor Frankenstein do it? Are you going to tell me Satan is less powerful than some human? Wait, I think I might be getting my stories mixed up...